


The Heart Speaks in Whispers

by Hana (SecretSmile101)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Christmas, F/F, Fluff, Not incest because in this AU they aren't related!, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 15:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7512874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretSmile101/pseuds/Hana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning of Emma & Mary Margaret's relationship.</p><p>"Emma didn't care if it was experimentation, desperation, or both. She'd take it. She had to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Speaks in Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a world where Storybrooke is just a normal town and its occupants are all just normal people. The events in Henry's book are just stories that he believes are real.
> 
> Things progress in a similar manner to the first season but there are a few key changes (e.g. Graham's still alive) and events occur in a shorter amount of time.
> 
> I don't even know how this fic happened. I just saw a gifset of Emma moving in and then this gushed out like some embarrassing accident. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It was all Mary Margaret's fault. She was supposed to leave Henry and go back to Boston but she'd convinced her to stay the week. Then she'd offered her the spare bed. Seeing as she never relied on anyone but herself Emma had been adamant that her car would do until she found somewhere. But all she could think about once she curled up shivering for the night was how warm Mary Margaret seemed. Emma couldn't understand how someone so loving and caring could be so alone.

Life had become one vicious cycle. Moving around so much meant she barely owned anything and didn't really have any friends...which meant she rarely stuck around for long and it was easy to move on so, oh you get the idea. She would have already driven to another state if Mary Margaret hadn't have kept convincing her to stay. For Henry of course. (But Mary Margaret being such good company had helped.)

They were friends. Already so close they spent most of their time together. Able to read each other's moods and call each other out on their bullshit. Like the time Emma had claimed she didn't put up any walls and Mary Margaret had snorted with laughter.

"Hey what's up?" Emma asked when Mary Margaret came home one night, dusting the snow off her coat. Her cheeks were flushed red from the cold. 

"David said that he loved me again."

Emma's heart stung in her chest. "And you don't look happy about that because..."

"He still won't leave Katherine."

"Oh."

"Even though I know he doesn't have feelings for her." Mary Margaret roughly tugged off her coat, gloves, bobble hat and scarf and seemed to halve in size. "He doesn't even remember half the time they spent together!"

Emma sighed. They'd been through this so many times before. David had done this to Mary Margaret so many times before.

Emma walked over from the counter, cupped Mary Margeret's cheeks in her hands and kissed her on the lips. Nothing too fancy. Just enough to get her point across. She then walked back to the counter to resume cooking as though she'd just done something perfectly normal.

"What was that for?" Mary Margaret asked, brushing her lips with her fingers. "I mean it's not that I mind two women locking lips or anything I'm just not sure why you decided to do that with me right this very moment just now."

It was kind of cute when Mary Margaret was flustered. Unnecessary words came tumbling out as though it would take more effort than she could bear to hold them all in any longer. 

"I just wanted to remind you what it's like to be kissed by someone who gives a shit."

"David cares!"

"Not enough." Emma replied, more bitterly than she'd intended. 

Mary Margaret walked over so she was stood opposite her with the counter in between them. She reached out and covered Emma's hand with her own.

"Do you wanna talk about this?" She asked softly.

Emma pulled her hand free. "Nope."

"Do you wanna stop cooking the," Mary Margaret paused to try and work out what exactly she was making for dinner but couldn't figure it out, "the err stuff and kiss me again?"

"You're kidding right?"

"Nope." Mary Margaret said, echoing Emma's own words back at her. 

Emma didn't care if it was experimentation, desperation, or both. She'd take it. She had to. She placed the knife down on the counter, walked round and kissed her roommate for the second time that evening. Her lips felt so soft pressed up against her own. Yet there was always that quiet confidence and fierceness about Mary Margaret which was what really drew Emma in. She could feel it again now.

Mary Margaret led her over to the bed and began pulling Emma's clothes off. 

"Oh so this is why you sleep on the first floor." Emma teased. "For those moments when you're too impassioned to make it all the way up the stairs." Emma ran her fingers through Mary Margaret's hair and pressed her face into her neck, breathing her in. She smelt flowery. They tumbled onto the bed and kissed again.

"This isn't too weird for you?" Emma asked, speedily undressing her roommate.

"Is it weird that it's not?"

"Maybe it should be."

"I'm glad it isn't." Mary Mary said, smiling. And they stayed in bed until their fingers and tongues on each other's bodies couldn't distract them from their grumbling stomachs any longer.

Emma slipped her panties and a t-shirt on and resumed cooking later that evening. Mary Margaret pulled on her winter pjs. They poured two whiskeys to mark the occasion and Emma tried to suppress the panic running through her. Living together was going to be so awkward and it was all Mary Margaret's fault.

The blonde fell back on using humour to get her through. "So this is totally gonna boost my kid's grade in school, right." she said alternating between chopping vegetables and kissing her room mate again. "I wanna see straight As for this."

"Oh, it's gonna take a lot more than just one evening for that." Mary Margaret joked.

And as if knowing Emma needed a sign that everything was gonna be alright Mary Margaret etched a cross in the fog on the bathroom mirror when she went to shower the next morning. Emma returned the favour by leaving a dried flower in the book Mary Margaret was reading a week or two later.

Over time more and more of Emma's items began getting left on the bedside tables downstairs. Soon Emma slept upstairs so rarely that dust began to settle on the sheets.

"So if you're not in the book, how are you connected to it?" Mary Margaret asked one day when Emma was telling her about her latest adventure with Henry. This time they'd been tracking animals with Graham. She knew she shouldn't humour her son's delusions but he refused to speak to her if she said she didn't believe and besides, sneaking around the woods with walkie talkies behind Regina's back was fun.

Emma buried her head in her heads. "He thinks I'm Snow White's daughter."

"But he told me that I'm Snow White."

"Now you know why I struggle to look at him whenever he's got the book in his hands." she groaned.

"Well that's awkward." Mary Margaret said, shifting ever so slightly away from Emma on the couch.

"Yeah." Emma sighed. "And quite the mood killer too." She withdrew the arm from round her lover's waist. "So much for having an intimate night in." They burst out laughing and put their coats on to go out for drinks. Mary Margaret paused on the stairs. 

"What?" Emma asked.

"I'm so glad you made the first move that night." She bumbled. "I had no idea. That you felt that way I mean. I never knew."

Emma grinned and wiggled a bobble hat on Mary Margaret's head as she walked down the stairs behind her.

Their unspoken arrangement continued throughout fall and into winter and they were happy living together, cooking for each other and laughing over glasses of wine whenever a guy tried to ask one of them on a date. Once someone had even hit on Mary Margaret right in front of her and the next day Emma found a note in her pocket saying she would always turn them down. Emma had carefully put the pastel coloured paper in her secret box of keepsakes she'd carried with her since she was 12.

From then on Emma had been able to hold on to the idea that what they had was neither rebound nor experiment and could even in fact be called a relationship. She couldn't help but smirk every time she saw David in the street. "Your loss buddy." She muttered to herself as she passed him trying to lure a stray dog out from someone's garden. "Your loss." She couldn't even rememeber the last time Mary Margaret had mentioned him.

Now they share a shower in the morning whenever one of them sleeps in and Emma always comes to lie on the bed when Mary Margaret sits there to fold the laundry. Like they've known each other for years, not months.

Mary Margaret pushed a jewellery box into her hand just before the town carol service everyone had gathered round the tree for on Christmas Eve. "Don't panic! It's just a necklace." she said, her round face eagerly anticipating Emma's reaction. "Do you like it?" Her hands were clenched into fists in front of her, almost jiggling in excitement.

"It's a bird." Emma wasn't surprised. She'd often wondered why her partner had such an obsession with them. Whenever she looked round their apartment she spotted bird designs on pretty much everything. Multiplying apparently.

"Well it's like my lucky symbol. And I thought it would be nice." Mary Margaret said quietly, smiling a little less brightly.

Emma hastened to reassure her. "It is nice." she said. "Thank you." She gave Mary Margaret's arm a squeeze.

The blonde turned over the necklace and found the words 'I love you" engraved on the other side. Tears welled in her eyes. She fastened it round her neck and nudged Mary Margaret to get her attention.

"Hey!" she whispered, just as the music for the first carol began to play. "I like you too." Mary Margaret beamed and Emma kissed her on lips after checking that Henry wasn't looking. One day they would explain, but it wasn't the right time for him to find out now. He was still adamant the events of the book were real.

But a few other people saw, including Regina who huffed and pouted all the way through the service whilst Emma sniggered behind her lyric sheet, delighted to see the woman who made both their lives hell looking so miserable herself. She tried to hold onto that feeling later when Regina yanked Henry in the direction of home after deeming five minutes too long for him to spend talking to his birth mother. Getting Graham to sneak her presents for Henry into his bedroom whilst they were all singing carols had been a good call. "Look under the bed!" she mouthed when Henry turned his head back round to get one last look at her.

A few weeks ago one of Mary Margaret's students had drawn a picture of what they thought her wedding would look like. And when they got home after the carol service Emma used Henry's crayons to give the groom long blonde wavy hair and some high heels to match the suit. She stuck it back on the fridge. This being happy and sticking around in small town America thing. It was all Mary Margaret's fault.


End file.
